so i'm going to have some time away from law school over the winter break, and i'm looking for something to read besides cases. i want history, and i'm open to anything from Alexander the Great to the Civil War to Patton and everything before, after, or in between.

so what are your favorite history books, and why?

The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides is the first or second great history book, depending on your thoughts on Herodotus, who wrote about the war between the Greeks and Persia.

Thucydides was an Athenian general who wrote of the war between Athens and Sparta. He thought it was going to be a very important war and he wanted, he said, to leave a record for the ages. He did.

I first read it as an undergraduate nearly 40 years ago. Every five or ten years I read it again. It is timeless and its lessons are applicable to every war.

He is concerned with democracy, both its virtues and vices. He is concerned with what the greeks called Hubris, which can roughly be translated as the arrogance of power or imperial distemper. It is a tragedy in the sense that the destruction of Athens' glory was brought about by the very things that made her great.

It is a very conservative book in the sense that he argues for the long view and the notion that caution is the greatest tool one can use.

A little closer to home, The Conquest of Texas, Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875, is a recent book about what happened when the indigenous tribes ran up against southern anglos in 19th century Texas. The author is an Okie historian with a lot of sympathy for the natives but the story is rivetting.

Anabasis by Xenophon. Great story of a greek army stranded in Persia and the methods they used to make it back to Greece.



S-2 Marauders 89-92
H-1 Raiders 92-93
USMC 94-98

I'm feeling a little intimidated and inadequate by the first two suggestions, but I'll chime in.

Don't really have a favorite (there are too many!) but I recently read, and very much enjoyed, "To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World" by Arthur Herman. I've always been fascinated by the Age of Sail, and the book goes into a fair amount of minutiae regarding life aboard a RN sailing ship. Herman is definitely an Anglophile, and there are some errors in the book, but it was interesting to watch the British Navy evolve from a bunch of glorified pirates into the instrument that made sure the sun never set on the British Empire. If you're into things nautical you might take a look at it.

"A Storm in Flanders: The Ypres Saliet 1914-1918" by Winstom Groom was good too. I am in awe of what those men endured, day in and day out, for weeks and sometimes months.

Edited for spelling and "why".

[This message has been edited by Longstreet (edited 12/13/2006 5:07p).]

"The Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstin.

Focuses on the advancement of mannkind through discovery. Starts out with the basics such as the mastery of time (clocks, calenders, etc.), talks about the impact various groups had on history such as the Mongols, Vikings, Chinese, etc. Continues on into the impact of the compass, printing press, telescope, microscope, etc.

The book gets my vote for its all-encompassing scope. It is also a treasure trove of trivial knowledge & can be read in segments.

"The Discoverers" sounds very good. I might put that on my Christmas list!

Discoverers is pretty good.

Reviews of The Discoverers on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Discoverers-Daniel-J-Boorstin/dp/0394726251

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Amazon.com
Perhaps the greatest book by one of our greatest historians, The Discoverers is a volume of sweeping range and majestic interpretation.

To call it a history of science is an understatement; this is the story of how humankind has come to know the world, however incompletely ("the eternal mystery of the world," Einstein once said, "is its comprehensibility". Daniel J. Boorstin first describes the liberating concept of time--"the first grand discovery"--and continues through the age of exploration and the advent of the natural and social sciences. The approach is idiosyncratic, with Boorstin lingering over particular figures and accomplishments rather than rushing on to the next set of names and dates.

It's also primarily Western, although Boorstin does ask (and answer) several interesting questions: Why didn't the Chinese "discover" Europe and America? Why didn't the Arabs circumnavigate the planet? His thesis about discovery ultimately turns on what he calls "illusions of knowledge." If we think we know something, then we face an obstacle to innovation. The great discoverers, Boorstin shows, dispel the illusions and reveal something new about the world.
Although The Discoverers easily stands on its own, it is technically the first entry in a trilogy that also includes The Creators and The Seekers. An outstanding book--one of the best works of history to be found anywhere. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly
In Boorstin's 1983 bestseller The Discoverers , the achievements of Galileo, Columbus, Darwin, Gutenberg and Freud emerged as upwellings of creativity and courage, ingenious acts of revolt against ingrained habit.

This richly illustrated two-volume edition reveals the world as known to the discovers themselves. We see the tools of discovery--Egyptian obelisks, early clocks, Leeuwenhoek's microscope, Mercator's maps, botanical drawings from James Cook's voyages--and glimpse the social, cultural and political background, made concrete in 550 pictures including paintings, sculpture, engravings and architecture.

A photograph of 15th-century cast bronze type from Korea underscores an Eastern invention that could have changed the course of printing, perhaps of science and culture.

In a feast for the mind and eye, itself a delightful adventure in discovery, Boorstin, librarian of Congress emeritus, profiles--and places in context--scores of innovators who broke with dogma and tradition.

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I just read "In the Land of White Death". It is a journal from Valerian Albanov who was aboard the Saint Anna, a Russian vessel that was frozen into the ice in 1912. It recounts the trek across the Artic.

It was rather good.

America's Longest War is the best analysis of the actions taken during the Vietnam War I have ever read


"There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind."
Napoleon Bonaparte

The Destructive War: William Tecumseh, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans by Charles Royster

I'll also put in my vote for The Discoverers. The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination by Boorstin is also quite good.

I just finished reading Rubicon, and would highly recommend it. Its basically about the end of the Roman republic, the people and the time, and the events that led to its collapse. It's a very easy read.

The Name of War will give you a pretty good overview of King Phillip's War - a period most people forget or flat don't know about. It's pretty dense so if you're looking for a respite from cases, I'd wait on it. The Brazil Reader will give you an excellent overview of Brazilian history, which is a completely unique experience. It does a good job of compensating for the fact that most readers don't know much about Brazil and a fair bit more about the rest of South America.

The 1939 Texas Aggies by Mickey Herskowitz. Its short so you still have time to read it. I ended up reading the whole thing in two days.

[This message has been edited by H6RBW (edited 12/31/2006 10:31p).]

I liked Ghost Soldiers, and anything by Charles Whiting regarding WWII.

Lone Star Republic by HW Brands.


Livin' the dream!

I'll throw a couple more out there:

TEXIAN ILIAD, A Military History of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836 - by Stephen L. Hardin

(and in the genre of historical fiction) GATES OF FIRE: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae - by Steven Pressfield

[This message has been edited by jh94 (edited 1/4/2007 10:30a).]

[This message has been edited by jh94 (edited 1/4/2007 10:34a).]

I have to second "Ghost Soldiers". Very good book.

I like WWII also and suggest Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad" and "The Fall of Berlin, 1945". Very tough to read (I was pretty young though) but you read about everything those soldiers went through and it's exasperating.

I just finished reading "The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd" by Richard Zacks.

I thought it was a very good book. It read more like an action adventure than a history book.

A good short read is the Poet and the Madman (about the Salamander Letters) and Simon Winchester's book about the making of the Oxford Dictionary.

Both cases, it was very talented and impressive guys going nuts.

RedAgs01,

Your post reminded me that I bought Lone Star Republic but never read it. Started it tonight. Really good.

"Wars of the Mexican Revolution: A Memoir"

By Taco O'Malley

It's a bucolic look at war from a man who reveled in the pleasure of sitting in front of an open fire, surrounded by sweaty tanned men who hadn't bathed in months. It's an iconic self-examination by someone who had plenty of time for self-examination while on campaign.

I just bought a copy of the complete set of Samuel Eliot Morrison's 15 volume history of the U.S. Navy in WWII. I'm looking forward to delving into that at some point.

TEXIAN ILIAD, A Military History of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836 - by Stephen L. Hardin
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Great book, would also recommend:

PURSUIT: The chase and sinking of the battleship Bismarck,. Ludivic Kennedy

Anabasis by Xenophon is good.

Hanibal by Theodore Dodge. About Hanibal and the Punic War.

Jefferson's War by Wheelan. About the war w/ the pirate states of N. Africa.

Fehrenbauch's book on the Comanche was good.

Plutarch

History of Persian Empire by Olmstead.

Diaz's history of Cortez's expedition.

And 2 20th Cent bios for good measure--

Woodrow Wilson's Right Hand. Bio of Colonel House.

Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War.

Modern Times by Paul Johnson should be required reading.

It's a good first step into the geopolitics that gave birth to the bloodiest century so far.

[This message has been edited by SuperDave03 (edited 1/18/2007 11:45p).]

Everyone should read A World Transformed. I know Bush and Scowcroft wrote this version of how the Cold War came to a close, but it is an interesting look into that period. And there are some interesting parts about Gates' involvement with the Tianammen Square incident. And also, if you get the chance, register as a researcher and use the Presidential Archives over at the Bush Library. I did that for my senior thesis and it was one of the most interesting things I've ever done. And they're declassifying documents hand over fist now.

I always preferred the first hand accounts....

First one I remember reading when I was a kid was Wake of The Wahoo about U.S.S. Wahoo's exploits right before it was lost.

GREAT glimpse into the life of the silent service.

Despite it being a WWII book (which is a bit kitschy as far as history is concerned), The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer was a great read. It's about a French kid who joined the Wehrmacht and fought on the eastern front as first in the supply corps and then as an infantryman. The panic, terror, starvation, and hopelessness he describes is in stark contrast to books written from the winner's point of view.

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kitschy

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I was going to list Sajer's book here, but it had so many knocks by historians, I put it under the "historical novels" thread. No matter how slice it, that is a GREAT read. Absolutely riveting.

i love lamp

R.W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages

- vivid look at the changes of thought and institutions that led to "medieval civilization"; best selling medieval studies book ever

Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages

- portrays the waning culture of medieval life in Northern France and the Low Countries in the era leading up to the Renaissance, their art and ways of life; landmark cultural history, written by a young Dutch professor in a relative's attic in a single summer so he could keep his job, published in 1919, one of the ten greatest histories ever written

Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture

- sums up two centuries of German scholarship on the culture of the Greeks, though with implications extending far beyond; the professor fled Germany in the 1930's and became a professor at Harvard; read this book and you will know more about Western Civ than most of your professors